Friday, November 20, 2015

I learned about this wonderful organization through my daughter. Can you recognize her in the photo?

At any rate, if you are interested in a non-profit organization that runs programs to give youth new life opportunities through instruction in various media, including film, check it out. You can find out more here www.intersectionsmedia.com. To learn which is my daughter, come to the open house. We'll both be there!

Thursday, November 19, 2015

As Lower
Mainland politicians and government officials grapple with housing
affordability, it may be time to turn to Edward de Bono.

That is
what I am doing as I prepare a presentation for the forthcoming Affordable
Housing Strategy Workshops being organized by Metro Vancouver.In case
you are not familiar with de Bono, he is widely regarded as the father of
lateral thinking or what today is called “thinking outside the box.”

I was
first introduced to de Bono’s writings by my father, a barber turned librarian,
who admired those who challenged conventional thinking. He was impressed with
his credentials: a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in medicine from Oxford, a PhD
from Cambridge and faculty appointments at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard.

Now 82,
de Bono has written 57 books, translated into 34 languages. His basic thesis is
that most schools do not teach us how to think; instead we learn by rote.
Consequently, we need to learn how to think more creatively.

My former
development company once brought him to Vancouver. Over lunch he told me
whenever he hires someone, he invites them for a meal. If they put salt and
pepper on their food before tasting it, he doesn’t hire them. After all, what
if the food is already too salty?One of my favourite de Bono books is Six Thinking Hats. Written 30 years ago,
it proposes six distinctive ways to problem solving. Instead
of “putting on your thinking cap” he advocates different coloured caps. When
you wear a yellow cap you can only offer positive thoughts; with your red cap
you can share intuitive or emotional feelings.

A black
hat requires you to view things critically, while a green cap invites you to be
creative. When wearing a white hat, you should only offer facts without
opinion. A
favourite de Bono technique for problem solving is to consider the opposite. When a
fish processing company invited him to advise it on how it could more
effectively remove fish from the bones, he suggested it focus on removing the
bones from the fish.

Which
brings me to housing affordability. We often
say we’re running out of land. I say we’re not running out of land; we’re just
not making the best use of the land we already have. For example, look at all
the parking lots around the city. Why not use them for housing, with parking
underneath?

Why do
zoning bylaws require often useless side yards between buildings? By reducing
one or both side yards, we can make much better use of street frontages. Just
ask the Europeans.

Laneway
housing is an example of lateral thinking. But let’s go the next step and build
English mews-style row houses or small apartment blocks along some lanes. We could
also build rental apartments on underutilized lawns surrounding older high-rise
apartment buildings.

We can reduce
housing costs by sharing. Many of us shared when we were young and poor. I
shared a one-bedroom apartment in Ottawa with Bernard. He slept in the bedroom;
I slept in the living room. It worked because there was a door to the living
room. Unfortunately,
most new one-bedroom apartments, with combined living/dining/kitchen layouts
don’t lend themselves to sharing. An exception is at SFU’s UniverCity where
some living rooms were designed with doors and two unrelated people can
comfortably share the cost of a small one-bedroom suite.

While
Vancouver will never be as affordable as Merritt or Winnipeg, with more
creative thinking, we can produce more affordable housing. Just ask Edward de
Bono.